


Stone Cold

by ariel_manto



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, But not really romantic, Nightmares, One Shot, So much angst, Suggested Hicsqueak, and so is Hecate, because I'm just a ball of angst, cats are a bit useless sometimes, i don't know how to tag, i don't make the rules, post-episode: Bad Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 09:11:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20112670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel_manto/pseuds/ariel_manto
Summary: Post Bad Magic, and Hecate not really coping very well.





	Stone Cold

**Author's Note:**

> I never posted a fic before and also I'm terribly out of sync with everyone in regards to airing dates, but just humour me, please.  
And I haven't proofread this because I would never post it if I did, so er, just ignore any glaring mistakes or let me know about them I guess?  
Oh, and have the "English is not my first language" disclaimer as well...

Sleeping had not been on her agenda that night. Not that she’d thought she’d be able to anyway, but just in case, she’d tried to keep herself busy. Did the rounds again and again, making sure the castle was quiet and then making sure it was not too quiet. That the correct number of hearts were beating; that slow, sleeping breaths were still being drawn.

Still, bodies are treacherous things, and as the adrenaline from the day’s events ebbs, her consciousness starts to blur at the edges. Imperceptibly at first – a stack of essays to be marked (abysmal at best; reassuringly normal) catches her attention but halfway through the third one, the words start to become illegible, and while she is inclined to blame Beatrice Bunch’s frankly atrocious handwriting, she is dimly aware of how disjointed her thoughts are becoming, and how she seems unable to retain the grip on her pen for long enough to transfer whatever comments she might be able to string together onto the paper. 

_She is in the potions lab, back turned to the class, attention absorbed by the suddenly unfamiliar seeming jars and bottles on the shelves, when the silence strikes her.  
She knows before she turns around, but at the sight of the petrified girls standing at their cauldrons, her stomach still drops. Unable to bear the sight of that sea of grey which is making her vision swim, she transfers away. _

__

_Ada will know what to do, surely? Ada is safe and steady and her relentless optimism allows her to never stop searching for the solution to a problem. Ada will set it right, whatever disaster Hecate has brought upon them through her recklessness, her stupidity, her weakness. Her failure to protect the girls. Her failure to help them now.  
Ada will set it right._

_The headmistress’ office is as warm and comfortable as ever, but the silence is wrong. It’s the silence from her classroom, the silence of a breath drawn in but not released. Frozen, but not from lack of magic like the year before. The magic is all too present here, crackling in the air, nipping at her fingers, willing her to relinquish control. Swirling around the statue behind the desk. It looks so wrong, Ada drained of colour like that.  
She turns and runs._

_She knows that somehow this is all her doing, and that if she can only get away from there, they might all be okay. So she runs, not knowing where to, not stopping to consider the fact that she will only be able to get so far. That sooner or later she will reach the edge of the school ground and be flung painfully back again. She cannot escape this anymore than she can escape herself._

_Somehow, she finds herself in the clearing where Indigo stands. She stops running, then – here, she knows the damage has already been done. She can’t hurt anyone here, not anymore than she already has. But her surroundings are spinning, and soon she can’t see Indigo, the statue is gone, and there is something else. Someone else._

_Hecate doesn’t think, doesn’t wonder how Pippa came to be here, doesn’t say anything, she just allows herself to return the embrace, to relax into it and close her eyes._

_She doesn’t feel the rampant magic sparking around her anymore._  
_Until suddenly she does. She stumbles backwards as she realises that pink and soft and warm has become grey and hard and cold.  
The clearing is spinning again, magic flaring wildly around her, she presses her eyes shut against it_

throws her head back, gasping for air, clutching at nothing, trying to control the runaway magic, only slowly realising there is nothing to control. The woods are gone, and so is Pippa, and she is back in her room sitting at her desk.  
The room still seems to be spinning, and she hunches over, one arm wrapped around her waist: the back of her hand pressed to her mouth.

Fighting to calm her breathing, certain she is going to be sick, she stays in that position, berating herself for slipping up and losing control,

“If you cannot control yourself, you cannot control magic.  
And if you cannot control magic; magic controls you.”

The phrase she keeps trying to instil in the girls now becomes a mantra to her, and she repeats it again and again until she feels herself settle back into some semblance of groundedness. 

As she regains awareness of her surroundings, she notices that she is shivering, having deliberately kept the temperature lower than usual in her rooms that night, telling herself it would help keep her awake, alert to any possible disturbances.  
Now she wonders if lighting a fire would help chase away the lingering feeling of cold stone against her face.

She looks at her watch to see how many hours she has left to fill until she can let herself be absorbed by the daily routine of the academy again.

With a sigh, she summons a vial of Wide-Awake potion and drains it, grimacing slightly. Her eyes are drawn to the mirror and that treacherous little voice in the back of her head whispers that Pippa might still be awake. She shuts it down and looks away; fingers flicking a cloaking charm on the mirror just to be on the safe side.

Morgana looks at her as if to say, “I know. I know, and I’m sorry, but I’m afraid emotional support is not one of the services I offer.” She wonders if the familiar and the witch might not be a bit too similar in that regard.


End file.
